'The Arse of Jessie!'

So.........last night Anne wanted to learn to play 'Euchre', the card game we used to play regularly with Dulcie.

She didn't give much impression of knowing anything about cards at first and her attempts at shuffling the cards were pretty poor.

Will explained the rules but she still seemed a bit bewildered so they started off playing together against me so he could talk her through the hands and discuss why he was playing each hand the way he did.

Her shuffling improved and by the end Will had wandered off and left her pretty much to it.

She played hands he would have passed on and won them......I know that doesn't say much about my card skills.....but in the end she only went and beat me!

"Mum would say 'you have the arse of Jessie," said Will.

Anne goes to Frogknot!

So..........we have travelled into the bush!For those of you who don't know about Frogknot......It is the house Will built on 40 acres of land near Stanthorpe, about three hours south west of Brisbane. Will and I will be moving here in December if all goes to plan.The present house is made of straw bales but sadly while we have been away sometime in the last few years someone came and stole a solar panel off the roof displacing the ridge cap which consequently lead to water being funnelled by the corrugated iron roof into the walls and when straw gets wet.....it rots.The walls are slowly collapsing........we will have to build a new house.We set off this morning about 9.30 am and arrived just after lunch. Anne missed much of the scenery on the way up as she was reading the magazine out of last Sunday's newspaper. Since we arrived she has spent much of the afternoon sweeping up rat droppings ( there were a few more than normal ) and has even been more thorough than I normally am... but at least she now feels more at ease and more at home.We are here for three nights and it is our first adventure away from Brisbane since Anne came.......(Anne and I are off on another adventure away next week but more of that later.)It has rained a little today and been quite overcast. It is much cooler here than in Brisbane.Will made a lovely Green Thai Curry for tea and they are both sat knitting now.......It's like living with Darby and Joan.

Anne's Pea and Spring Onion Tart.

Prep - 30 minutes.Cooking - 50 minutes.For the pastry:200g/ 7oz plain flour (extra for dusting)100g/ 4oz butter (chopped)50g/ 2oz mature cheddar cheese (finely grated)For the filling:25g/ 1 oz butterbunch of spring onions (sliced)200g/ 7oz frozen peas150ml/ quarter pint of milk3 large eggs200g/ 7oz crème fraicheA good grating of nutmeg100g/ 4 oz mature cheddar cheese (grated)Method:

1. Heat the oven to 200c / 180c (fan). To make the pastry rub in the flour and butter to resemble fine breadcrumbs. Add the finely grated cheese. Add 2 - 3 tbsp. cold water and mix to a firm dough.
2. Knead the dough briefly and roll out and line a 30 x 20 cm rectangular tin with the pastry. There is no need to trim the pastry edges. Chill for 15 minutes then line with parchment, fill with baking beads and blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove beads and paper and bake for a further 10 minutes until biscuity brown. Now trim off the excess pastry using a small sharp knife.
3.  Beat the eggs, then beat in the crème fraiche, nutmeg, and half of the cheese. Add the pea puree and season. Pour into the pastry case and sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Bake for 25 - 35 minutes until the filling is firm and lightly browned.

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Into the Pacific.

So......last night a storm rumbled over us as we headed to bed. One particularly loud thunder clap woke Will but I had been awake for awhile listening to the rain. I heard Anne closing the window upstairs.This morning she said she had heard heavy breathing outside her window and that was why she closed it..... it would only have  been a possum.It was a gloriously sunny day today but again they were predicting storms.After Anne had prepared her Spring Onion and Pea Tart for tea tonight we headed out for the day. I had intended to take her down to the Gold Coast and onto Currumbin for the Lorikeet feeding but we got as far as Yatala North and Roxy was making an intermittent chirruping sound. I realised it was one of the belts and worried that it would snap decided to turn back at Yatala South. If anyone was going to get a storm today it would probably be the Gold Coast anyway so it was probably for the best.Driving back I had a thought and turned off the air conditioning.......the chirruping stopped.......it was only the air conditioning belt which did not seem as threatening. I made a snap decision and took the Gateway Motorway exit and we headed up to Bribie Island so that Anne could swim in the Pacific Ocean.We went to Woorim Beach. It was not very busy.The sea was lovely and warm but we spotted a few big blue jelly fish in the water which was a bit off putting. I wasn't sure if they were stinging jelly fish but a few other swimmers were being startled by them with one guy shouting " It's a blue - bottle!" in alarm. I knew it wasn't one of those because they are tiny but we still a bit on edge. At one point something touched my leg and I turned to find it was one of the jelly fish but it didn't sting me. We'd had enough though and got out and had our lunch.Five seagulls came to watch us eat.After lunch we had a wander up the beach.Since Anne arrived we have walked at least an hour everyday......except yesterday when we only managed 40 minutes.After the walk we had an ice cream and headed back to Brisbane. The promised storm had arrived and the skies over Brisbane were very grey. We had definitely made the right decision to head north rather than south today.

Masterchef Cumbria.

So......as well as a chicken made from a tea - towel, Anne also packed lots of recipes, hoping to help us by doing some cooking for us while she was here.Today she picked out three recipes for the next three nights.We went to Sunnybank and visited a Chinese supermarket with a fresh fish department to look what smoked fish was available.There were far too many flies about for us to be tempted to buy. We looked at the wide variety of fish available, accompanied by the regular sound of flies being zapped in the electric insect zapper, but there was no smoked fish.We went to Woolies for other ingredients Anne needed and then went back home.She cooked all afternoon.(Tonight we had Jamie Oliver's Chicken pie, tomorrow a spring onion and pea tart and on Wednesday a corn and ham flan..... Her Fisherman's pie will have to wait.)Popping out to the compost bin, this afternoon, to dump some vegetable cuttings the dog next door, called Bandit, barked at her and rushed at the fence giving her a fright. Donna, next door, came out and scolded the dog and chatted briefly to Anne.As Anne came back in, thrown by Donna's Australian accent, she waved at the dog and cried,"Bye Bend It."